Message-Based Communication Over Bus Between Cards in an Electronic Module

1. A method for communicating between cards in an electronic module, the method comprising: generating a message for transmission from an application at a first card in the electronic module; transmitting the message over a bus to an associated application at a second card in the same electronic module by-passing an IP stack located between an application layer and an interboard communication layer at the first card; monitoring a queue at the second card for messages from the first card; and reading a message from the queue at the second card when received from the first card.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein transmitting the message comprises transmitting the message over a cell bus.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating a message for transmission comprises generating a message for transmission between an application on the first card and an application on the second card.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the message for transmission comprises: allocating memory for the message; populating the memory with the message; and placing the message in a queue for transmission.

5. The method of claim 1 , and further comprising creating and registering the queue at the second card for a selected application.

6. A method for communicating between cards in an electronic module, the method comprising: generating a message for transmission from an application at a first card in the electronic module to an associated application at a second card in the same electronic module; transmitting the message over a cell-based bus as a message to the second card by-passing an IP stack; queuing the message in a queue for the associated application at the second card;. monitoring the queue at the second card for messages from the first card; and reading a message from the queue at the second card when received from the first card.

7. A method for communicating between cards in a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), the method comprising: generating a message for transmission from an application at a first card in the DSLAM to an associated application at a second card in the same DSLAM; by-passing the IP for the message; queuing the message at the first card; transmitting the message over a cell-based bus as a message to the second card; queuing the message in a queue for the associated application at the second card; monitoring the queue at the second card for messages from the first card; and reading the message from the queue at the second card when received from the first card.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein generating a message comprises generating a request by a connection admission control (CAC) application in the first card for data from a CAC application in the second card for use by the CAC application in the first card.

9. An electronic module, comprising: a first card including at least one application running on the first card; a second card including at least one related application running on the second card; a bus, communicatively coupled to both first and the second cards; wherein communication between the at least one application on the first card and the at least one application on the second card is accomplished by messages passed over the bus between the first and second cards by-passing an IP stack located between an application layer and an inter-board communication layer on the first and second cards.

10. An electronic module, comprising: a first card including at least one application running on the first card; a second card including at least one related application running on the second card; a bus, communicatively coupled to both the first and the second cards; wherein communication between the at least one application on the first card and the at least one application on the second card is accomplished by an inter-card communication module that selectively queues messages communicated between the first card and the second card so as to by-pass the IP stack of the first card.